


Here's the Thing

by Jen



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: BtVS S2, Community: btvs_santa, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:10:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen/pseuds/Jen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whistler talks about Buffy in "Becoming, Part I" in voice-overs; this piece is an imagining of what he might have to say about Xander, Giles, Spike, and Willow's present and future in the closing scenes of "Becoming, Part II," presented as a series of brief character studies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's the Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyofthelog in btvs_santa 2009 on LJ](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ladyofthelog+in+btvs_santa+2009+on+LJ).



> **Title**: Here's the Thing  
> **Rating**: G  
> **Disclaimer**: These are Joss's and TPTB. I own nothing.  
> **Thanks**: readerjane did some beta-action on the DL to help me keep my secret. Gracias, lady!  
> **Setting/Author's Note**: These are arranged chronologically, with Xander's piece set after he's lied to Buffy about Willow's message, Spike's as he reveals his alliance with Buffy, Giles's as he's led out of the mansion by Xander, and Willow's as she finishes the re-ensoulment spell.

~Xander~

Here's the thing about love.

Sometimes it can bring out the best in you. It's the stuff the poets write about, like how love can make you noble and brave and true, can make you better than you are.

But it ain't always like that.

This is the part gets left out of the fairytales: sometimes love brings out the worst in you. It can make you jealous and selfish and scared. It can drive you to do and say things you never would have thought possible. It makes you believe you know best, even when what you've really become is judgmental and unforgiving.

Oh, you can say you're doing the right thing, maybe even convince yourself of that for a while. But if you look real closely, you'll see things about yourself that maybe you'll wish you hadn't.

Ain't love grand?

 

~Spike~

Here's the thing about choices.

That stuff about destiny? Yeah, most of that is crap, churned out by oracles and spirit guides because they like the buzz it brings, convincing some poor slob his fate's already decided for him. That, and the cash in the fortune-telling business ain't bad, either.

Here's what The Powers That Be don't want you to know: what you do, who you are, you do that yourself. None of us is finished, not until our time here is done, and sometimes all it takes is that one choice that puts you on a path you never expected to travel.

Because one choice always leads to another, and before you know it, it seems like everything is different, that the world's a different place. But it ain't so much the world that's changed – it's you, the product of all the choices that lead you to who you're gonna be.

 

~Giles~

Here's the thing about trying to protect someone.

For the most part, you can't. You wanna help, wanna do your best to keep the people you're looking out for safe. But the world bein' what it is ain't real conducive to that. The world's a big, bad, scary place, full of big, bad, scary things, and wishing it away ain't gonna change it.

And when the person you're trying to protect is a protector herself? When she's the thing that stands between all of us and darkness? Well, then you got yourself a real problem.

Because the bad stuff is gonna come. You know that. And it's going to hurt her, maybe even be more than she can bear.

But you can't stop it, no matter how hard you try. And much as you might wanna shoulder the burden for her, you can't do that, either. Sometimes you have to let her go and hope for the best.

 

~Willow~

Here's the thing about power.

It can seem like a real positive thing, you know? Especially when you've never had any before and when you think you can use it to help, to be a force for good. 'Cuz being a force for good? It means you get to really be somebody for once. When you have power, you're not just the one who always gets picked on or overlooked or underestimated.

It means you're more than what everyone else always thought. It means you're something special.

But power can change you, sometimes almost without you even knowing. You have to always be on your guard, because power's seductive. It's easy to lose yourself in it, to lose your way.

Power can define you. The tougher part is figuring out who you are underneath, so that you control the power, instead the power controlling you.

That's how you change the world.


End file.
